Today was the Wilmington Christmas Bird Count. Shun and I took care of the north part of Brunswick County. It was fun but just not the same without Greg providing some comic relief. For those of you non-birders, the CBC is a snapshot of bird populations across the US (and maybe exUS?). It is the census of the bird world. Birds are a little harder to census because they are not sitting in their houses watching TV. So in order to get a snapshot of all the birds, all the citizen scientists must coordinate to work certain assigned "circles" or areas to cover. From the data that is compiled, Audubon and other naturalists can infer trends and glean important info on the health of overall bird populations.
We hit up many of the same spots as last year and the weather was decent (no rain but poor lighting). However, we had less birds than last year and no really notable birds. We dipped on Bachman's Sparrow which was our best bird last year.
Pine Warbler
Chipping Sparrow. Shun and I tried real hard to rustle up something rare but no dice. We even went stomping through a number of wet fields. At one point I had a small sparrow flush up from my feet and it exhibited typical Ammodramus Sparrow behavior, flying only a few feet and running through the vegetation rather than flying away. It was olive colored and small. My guess is a Henslow's but I can't be sure and so it remains "Sparrow sp".
Eastern Towhee.
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.
Shun had not seen the large fish kill at the North end of Wrightsville yet so we headed over after the count was done. Some other birders were there and already had an Iceland Gull in their scopes.
Iceland Gull.
We lost the bird when the whole flock took off, scared by some other beach goers.
As you can imagine finding one or two birds in a flock numbering over 40k (estimated by some other birders).
However, we re-found the bird and a second to boot.
This was the second bird digiscoped through Shun's scope. It was a darker bird, maybe 1st year.
This was the lighter maybe 2nd year bird also digiscoped with my iPhone.
Tomorrow is the Southport CBC but Melissa is running so I probably will not get out until late. Hopefully the other counters find something nice.
Great times.
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